A variety of medical procedures include making an incision through a body tissue. To close the incision, the physician generally aligns the tissue planes on opposite sides of the incision and holds the tissue planes together with forceps. While holding the tissue planes together, the physician may suture the planes to one another to close the incision.
One medical procedure which includes making an incision is a cesarean section, or C-section. Such a procedure is an increasingly common alternative to natural childbirth (i.e., vaginal delivery). During a cesarean section, an incision is made through a patient's abdomen and uterus to deliver a child. After delivery of the child, the physician must close the incision through the uterine tissue. As is common when closing incisions through other body tissues, the physician generally will use forceps to hold the planes of uterine tissue on either side of the incision together while using a needle driver to pass a needle through the tissue to suture the incision closed.
Proper approximation of the uterine tissue (i.e., alignment of the tissue planes) following a cesarean section is important to promote proper healing of the uterine defect. If proper healing is not achieved, complications may occur in later pregnancies or later in life. Such complications may include abnormal placental plastentation, pelvic pain, or other complications.